SYSTEM DYNAMICS
REVIEW
PUBLISHER’S
MISSION STATEMENT
·
To increase the
visibility of the journal throughout the world both geographically and to
different groups.
·
To grow
full-price subscriptions.
·
To work with
the SDS to increase the membership.
·
To realize the
potential of the internet and the developmental potential for the journal.
·
To increase the
citation coverage.
SOME HIGHLIGHTS
§
This year we
want to look especially at ways of easing the administrative effort all round.
Some discussion points are included in a separate document on this matter.
§
Online usage
statistics (see later in this report). We hope the information provided is
interesting and that it will be of use to the Society and the editor in their
planning and development of the journal. Feedback on the statistics is
appreciated.
§
Online
repository: this idea has our support. If it were to be given the go ahead –
and once the repository was populated – we would like to see any available
models, methods, or datasets linked from the online abstracts of papers
themselves. This would allow not only easy navigation, but would enable guest
users to appreciate even more the value of getting a subscription or joining
the SDS.
§
Marketing
campaign in April 2002 (mail, email, with free trial access offer)
§
WileyEurope.com
website is now live. Wiley would like to offer System Dynamics Society members
a 20% discount scheme on all Wiley books as an additional benefit to
membership. Please let us know if there is interest in this scheme and we will
set it up.
OVERVIEW
Published with
Wiley since:
1990
Issues per year:
4
Paid circulation
2001:
1032 (979 in 2000; 950 in 1999)
Paid circulation
2002 to date: 685
Major geographical
split in 2001:
USA / Western Europe / UK / Asia
|
Price |
Full |
SDS |
SDS Student |
|
2002 |
$495 |
$90 |
$45 |
|
2001 |
$465 |
$90 |
$45 |
|
2000 |
$430 |
$90 |
$45 |
|
1999 |
$395 |
$80 |
$40 |
Overview of subscription base
|
Subscriptions |
Full |
SDS |
Enhanced
Access Licences (EALs) |
|
To date 2002 |
109 |
553* |
23 |
|
At end 2001 |
168 |
842 |
28 |
|
At end 2000 |
191 |
779 |
9 |
*
comprising 118 student members and 435 regular members.
Subscription pattern
Our target
audience is, of course, made up of researchers, educators, consultants, and
practitioners who are using system dynamics.
Society membership
appears to have increased by nearly 5% during 2000, and over 7% in 2001, which
is excellent. Membership continues to grow: we seem currently to be running
ahead of this point last year by 6%. SDS membership clearly remains an
attractive package for people working or researching within the field of
system dynamics.
The forecast from
SWETS for all academic journals across the board in 2001 was about the same as
for previous years with a predicted rate of attrition still averaging 5%; with
the US slightly higher at 6%. Reasons include the continuing strength of the
US dollar, and reduced library budgets.
There are signs
though that libraries are prepared to pay for key electronic content and
packages. Our Enhanced Access Licence deals, for instance, are doing very
well.
In an attempt to
stop the attrition and increase the institutional subscriptions Wiley has
taken a number of measures to address the above issues:
·
Price increases
for institutional subscriptions in 2001 have again been kept to below previous
percentage increases.
·
Wiley now has
an enlarged pro-active sales team in place, who are approaching key
institutions with bespoke Enhanced Access Licences (EALs) based around the
idea of multi-user and multi-site access. During 2000, we sold 9 of these; in
2001 we sold 28 EALs, and already we have 23 EALs in hand for 2002.
The working
relationship between Wiley and the Society’s office has continued to be
good. However, we do realize that from both perspectives there are
opportunities to improve communication and avoid duplication of effort. As
mentioned above, some discussion points are included in a separate document.
Likewise, for some
Wiley journals, we are currently looking into the pros and cons of various
online editorial office systems that will interface more effectively with
other management information systems. We would like to explore opportunities
for closer working together between Wiley, the editor, and the Society's
office for our mutual benefit, and to reduce duplication of tasks.
The Production
Editor currently responsible for SDR
– Michelle Theakston – confirms that the situation with regard to copy
flow and timeliness of publication looks very healthy. Graham Winch has left
the journal in a good position for 2002, and this should enable the Society
and Brian Dangerfield to build up a healthy amount of copy.
Issue 18:1 is
right on time, and we are given to understand that copy for the Dana Meadows
memorial issue 18:2 is all in hand.
Our ideal aim is
still to have at least one issue in hand at Wiley to provide a cushion and
avoid delays if, for any reason there is hold-up with a paper, a copyright
permission (e.g. for screen dumps), or the production process itself.
Some Wiley
journals are successfully now experimenting with electronic pre-prints as part
of Wiley EarlyView®. The benefits here are that material can be made
available to online subscribers very soon after an author returns their
corrected proofs. This could effectively speed up publication for our authors.
EarlyView does, however, really require a backlog of papers to justify
producing them early.
Some of the ways in
which Wiley InterScience, is currently adding value to its journal content
(for example pre-print publishing and article-by article publishing), are
helped considerably by the receipt of disks. More generally, raising the
percentage of disk submissions from authors will bring these important
benefits:
·
Speed: The early availability of a digital version of the
manuscript means copyeditors and typesetters can immediately get to work on
the manuscript, and so avoid the delay involved in re-keying.
·
Service: Authors will feel reassured, justifiably, that we are
making best use of their already considerable effort in creating a digital
version of their article, and we will avoid the need to chase them for a disk
after acceptance of their manuscript.
·
Quality: By using author-supplied disks, typographical errors
introduced by re-keying are minimized resulting in a more accurate proof and
greater satisfaction for the author, as well as a reduction in proof
correction times for the author, the journal Editor and Wiley production
staff.
Our objective
remains to raise the level of manuscript submissions accompanied by an
electronic version to 100%. This is an attainable aim.
Computing Reviews,
Current Contents/Social and Behavioural Sciences (ISI), Fluidex (Elsevier),
Geographical Abstracts: Human Geography (Elsevier), INSPEC, International
Abstracts in Operations Research, Psychological Abstracts/PsycINFO, Research
Alert (ISI), Social Sciences Citation Index (ISI), Social SciSearch (ISI).
We will continue
to look for ways to increase the citation coverage, and any additional
suggestions for coverage are welcome.
The SDS has an
improved web presence at www.albany.edu/cpr/sds/, and
SDR is
available online at Wiley InterScience to full subscribers. Archival years of
full text go back to 1997 with (abstracts also available for 1996). In
addition SDS members, with their 2002 subscription, also receive access to SDR on Wiley InterScience.
·
The membership
take up of the electronic access to journal is working very smoothly. There are currently 471 members
accessing SDR online, up over 47% on
the figure of 320 reported in July 2001. This is very encouraging.
·
Sarah Stevens
in Wiley's journals administration department reports that she continues to
take quite a few telephone enquiries from people enquiring about membership
and access.
·
SDS site –
Wiley InterScience links will allow guest visitors to view current abstracts
and table of contents.
·
As mentioned in
our previous reports, we are keen to see the addition of supplementary
material to the SDR homepage, and
especially the possibility of making downloadable models available. We welcome
the discussion point on this Policy Council's agenda. An opportunity exists to
make full model documentation available as a link from the online System Dynamics Review to wherever the
data is finally stored. It is important to allow subscribers to replicate
models easily, and is an excellent example of how electronic access can offer
more than the print version alone. This will undoubtedly also have powerful
applications in the teaching of system dynamics theory.
New data available – Which articles are
actually being read?
There are some
very interesting new internal reports on journal usage via Wiley InterScience
now available.
For instance, some highlights during 2001
·
29,800 online
Tables of Contents of SDR looked at
(up from 16,300 in 2000)
·
6,595 online
abstracts looked at (up from 4,640 in 2000)
·
16,139 online
PDFs of articles looked at (up from 4,819 in 2000)
·
1,693 people
were denied access*
(* Basically this
means they either had no subscription to the full-text version, or their
institution didn't have enough concurrent-user subscriptions.)
An issue in more detail
Looking more
closely at issue 16:4 over the past year, for instance, we can see exactly
what were the most popular papers accessed in this issue during the period
from publication to December 2001. Potential exists for doing this over a much
longer period, with more issues, to assess trends and field development.
|
Date |
Most-accessed article title in issue 16:4 of SDR during Jan 2001 to Dec
2001 |
Full article downloads |
Next most hit paper received… |
|
Jan |
Bathtub dynamics: initial results of a systems thinking
inventory Sweeney &
Sterman |
19 |
4 |
|
Feb |
Bathtub dynamics: initial results of a systems thinking
inventory Sweeney &
Sterman |
88 |
59 |
|
Mar |
Bathtub dynamics: initial results of a systems thinking
inventory Sweeney &
Sterman |
63 |
41 |
|
Apr |
Toward a dynamic theory of
antibiotic resistance Homer et
al |
31 |
18 |
|
May |
Bathtub dynamics: initial results of a systems thinking
inventory Sweeney &
Sterman |
41 |
29 |
|
Jun |
Not only the tragedy of the commons: misperceptions of feedback and policies for sustainable development Moxnes |
45 |
28 |
|
Jul |
Toward a
dynamic theory of antibiotic resistance Homer et
al |
19 |
10 |
|
Aug |
Not only the tragedy of the commons: misperceptions of feedback and policies for sustainable development Moxnes |
30 |
29 |
|
Sep |
Bathtub dynamics: initial results of a systems thinking
inventory Sweeney &
Sterman |
26 |
23 |
|
Oct |
Not only the tragedy of the commons: misperceptions of feedback and policies for sustainable development Moxnes |
47 |
32 |
|
Nov |
Bathtub dynamics: initial results of a systems thinking
inventory Sweeney &
Sterman |
62 |
46 |
|
Dec |
Bathtub dynamics: initial results of a systems thinking
inventory Sweeney &
Sterman |
31 |
12 |
Linda Booth
Sweeney and John Sterman's article was the first paper in this issue. Assuming
readers are accessing the material via the Table of Contents – rather than
by, say, a search across all SDR
content available on Wiley InterScience – we can see there is a skew put on
the "most-read" articles by their position in the Table of Contents.
If the Policy Council wished to
look at a particular time period or at the stats of a particular issue, then
please let us know. We would hope that you would find this information
useful for your discussions.
MEMBERSHIP ADMINISTRATION
There are some
issues arising out of the administration of the (growing) SDS membership, and
we would like to contribute – separately from this report – a few points
to this discussion. There are a number of ways to improve the flow and quality
of information between Wiley and the Society.
MARKETING
·
Business and
Management catalogue – 30,000 copies
·
Finance and
Accounting catalogue – 30,000 copies
These are the
flagship catalogues of our publications in these areas, and SDR is featured in our journals collection. These catalogues are
distributed at major conferences, events, and in day-to-day promotion.
·
British Academy
of Management
·
Decision
Sciences Institute
·
ECIS
·
ICIS
·
INFORMS
·
ISF
·
OR Society
conference
·
SMS conference
·
System Dynamics
Society conference
·
US Academy of
Management
MARKETING PLAN 2002
A mailing and email blast campaign will be completed for the Journal during April 2002, using the Meadows special issue 18:2 as a ‘lead-in’ for new customers, and announcement of Brian Dangerfield’s new editorial role.
The campaign will include leaflet/sales letter/email blast and a ‘free access trial’ of two months for the journal, via Wiley InterScience. Any take-up will be reinforced with email/telephone follow up.
·
Mail 2001 and 2002 contributors encouraging
them to influence institutional subscriptions
·
Send similar letters to all new contributors
Wiley is very keen
to strengthen our relationship with individual members of the Society, and to
make available some further attractions for potential members. We did not
progress with a "bookclub" discount scheme in recent years, but now
thanks to the launch of our new local website – www.WileyEurope.com – we
can revisit this facility to buy online at discount. We would like to offer
System Dynamics Society members a 20% discount on all Wiley books as an
additional benefit to membership, and would welcome the opportunity to set up
this "bookclub".
Advertisements
have been placed, promoting the conference, in the following journals:
Strategic Management
Journal, Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Strategic Change, Business
Strategy and the Environment, Eco-Management and Auditing, European
Environment, International Journal of Population Geography, Journal of
Environmental Policy and Planning, Sustainable Development
These journals combined have an
estimated readership of 25,000.
The conference will also be promoted
on the web via Wiley InterScience, and we plan to encourage people that are
already linking to the SDR homepage
there to link to details of the conference as well.
·
Allows corporate and institutional customers
to license collections of Wiley business and finance journals
·
Continued global marketing push including
advertising, mailing, email alerting
·
Promotion of BoldIdeas will benefit the
profile and visibility of SDR
·
Free access trial period for prospective
customers
Diane Taylor dtaylor@wiley.co.uk